We're not really mad geniuses. We're just a little miffed

Post is coming

by Amanda on April 11, 2017

Sorry, guys. I’ve made three attempts at a post this morning and, each time, something has happened. So I’m going to step away from the computer for a bit and will return later. A post will happen then. No, nothing major, just weird crap that I need to deal with. In the meantime, the floor is yours. Make suggestions about what you’d like to see discussed and I might just choose one or more to write about.

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I’d like to know about pacing. Is there a set of marks that a story has to hit? Such as, ever X pages there should be a fist fight, or some sort of action scene? I’ve heard intimations that this may be the case.

By the way, there’s no need to apologize that you didn’t wake up at 5AM and rip out an amazing post for lazy us to peruse with our morning coffee. Sarah H does that all the time, and it is silly. Endearing, but silly.

I’ve never seen an outline that set, but Dwight Swain says each scene and chapter need tension and release, but building to the overall climax of the story. As I understand it, how tightly spaced and intense the action-release-action marks are depends in part on genre. A thriller will be tighter paced than a sweet romance, for example, with different kinds of tension and reward. And literary fiction can have very, very slow pacing, or (as best I can tell) none at all.

It’s a whole bundle of yarn knots for you to play with most of the time.

But one thing I have noted reading is that you need to have down time even in a high paced thriller. Whether it is the hero actually mending (injuries? What are those?) or just preparing for the next attack. Just like in real life if you try and keep going all out your reader will burn out.

I’ll leave pacing to Dave or Sarah or Brad. The problem with that is it really depends on not only the genre but the audience/age of the audience. There are so many factors that I’m sure I couldn’t do it justice.